flights

As my Sunday was getting started, I received a text message from a friend asking, “is it u in the papers 2day?”

I thought, oh god…

I grabbed my copy of the Sunday Times from outside my apartment door, and on the front page I quickly noticed the headline, Cleo’s eligible bachelors: He’s not mummy’s choice next to a photo of floorballer Lionel Sing (one of the Cleo 50). I flipped to the article and saw this…

I especially like the caption, and how I represent mummy’s idea of a “mature” partner. Here’s a key excerpt:

Her daughter is just 21-years-old, but Madam Chua Eng Keow thinks the 36-year-old Shawn Smith is the perfect date for her daughter… The 52-year-old housewife picked the IT consultant from the magazine’s list…and was unfazed by the 15-year age difference. Madam Chua chose Mr. Smith because she believes that, at 36, he would be more accommodating than a younger man.

‘At present, my daughter may want a younger boyfriend who can have fun with her, but I think when she grows older she’ll change her mind and prefer a more mature partner’

What, I’m too old to have fun?

Work has thankfully slowed down a bit…

Well, that’s not quite true. There’s just as much work as ever, but I’ve decided to return to a more humane schedule regardless.

Thursday night, I went to Brix for the first time – along with a colleague – on the recommendation of one of my clients, who told me it’s his favourite club in Singapore. Brix is fairly notorious for being full of working girls, but my client told me this is less true on weeknights. He said Thursday night is a good night to go, and this was corroborated by some female friends (who happened to add that in any case the working girls there are usually really cute). All my friends also described the club as being fairly “upscale,” with a good lineup of DJs and cover bands playing solid R & B.

The buzz on Brix turned out to be true. Inside, there were working girls everywhere, clinging to creepy old European guys (who, incidentally, outnumbered every other demographic in the place). Mostly, I find I’m uncomfortable observing interactions between these two tribes, although on this night it was interesting to see that even working girls have their standards.

I saw several of them dismiss a heavily-perspiring, aggressively unfashionable (white shoes, golf shirt tucked into jeans) guy on the dance floor, and I watched one girl shake her head at a decent-looking guy as she made a sign-language gesture regarding his wedding ring.

My friends were also right about the music. The band was taking a break when we arrived, but the house DJ was spinning out the likes of Marvin Gaye, Stevie, the Black-Eyed Peas. The band started their next set with Sly Stone, followed by some kind of Greek folk slash dance jam fusion (the lead singer was a funky-looking Eurasian woman whose hair was finely braided with strands of coloured ribbon, George Clinton style).

We stood there soaking up the music for a little while, and then there was a tap on my shoulder. Three college girls had come up, and they were asking me if I would keep an eye on their handbags while they danced. I’d never gotten such an “assignment” in a club before, and I didn’t really know what to do except say, “sure.”

A song or two later, they pulled me out onto the floor to join them. As we danced, I noticed they were wearing CLEO bracelets. I asked them about these, and they said they’d just been to the bachelors’ party. I’d completely forgotten when the CLEO event was happening, and the girls went on to tell me the after party was going on next door as we spoke.

I still feel a little sad to have missed it. If I were a few years younger (like, not older than the other 49 bachelors maybe), and if I’d had a few hours of free time last month, I’m sure I would have gotten into the whole experience. The CLEO staff were hard-working, sweet and a lot of fun. Not to mention a group of cute, eligible bachelorettes in their own right. The few other bachelors I met – including Hali (the second oldest) and Brendan (the winner) – seem like great guys.

Taking a second look at it, my bachelor bail-out posting from a few weeks ago sounds so gloomy – and even bitter. I was really, really burnt out when I wrote it, and it doesn’t paint a very accurate picture of my feelings, now or then. It’s true that I felt a little outside the demographic of the group of bachelors, so it seemed like I’d have to spend a little extra energy to fit in. If I’d had any spare energy at all last month, I would have given it a go. I would have liked to have totally embraced the experience and lived it fully. When it was all said and done, I would have liked to have written a funny little piece about it. But I was simply out of gas.

Being selected at all will go down as a great memory, and the magazine itself is one of the best life-souvenirs I could imagine.

Anyway, the three college girls at Brix got a chuckle out of the fact they were dancing with “uncle bachelor” and one of them offered a kind compliment: She said that if I’d been among the guys at the party, the ‘hottie factor’ would have been higher. Very sweet of her.

I was supposed to go for my Bachelors Finale “fitting” tonight, to try on the “sporty” wardrobe and learn how to walk the catwalk.

I opted out.

The Eligible Bachelors issue hit the newsstands over the weekend, and it was pretty anti-climactic. I received a copy by courier from the CLEO offices, flipped to the article and spotted myself, bachelor #2. The picture is silly, and I have no recollection of having said anything in my list of “quotes”, but I’m sure all the other bachelors are saying the same thing, so whatever.

Part of me really wanted to ride this thing to wherever it would take me. I imagined I’d immerse myself in the experience and absorb everything, then pass it through a filter of detached irony and produce a funny little bit of satire when it was all finished.

In the end, I just couldn’t.

Maybe it’s because I’m one of just two caucasian guys on the list, or maybe it’s because I’m the oldest (as I thought I would be). But it just suddenly didn’t feel fun. I just couldn’t bring myself to expend the effort necessary to immerse myself in the experience – even ironically. To do so, I’d have to actually try to fit in, to be one of the boys, and I’d have to pretend to enjoy it. As a nearly-middle-aged caucasian foreigner(!), I’d have to try harder, and pretend harder.

Anyway, it was a fun little ride, but I’m gonna step off this train. The rest of the trip I leave to the boys.

I met D for lunch and a movie today. We’ve been exchanging phone calls, but I hadn’t actually seen her in about two months. I had nearly forgotten her disarming (to use a euphemism from the movie we saw) smile and the way it flickers between her eyes and mouth.

We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant called Mai, owned and staffed by Vietnamese. We shared a pomelo salad – chunks of fresh pomelo, steamed prawns, steamed pork, dried cuttlefish, sesame seeds, chillis and fresh herbs – followed by a plate of cha ca. The latter was not served Hanoi style (on a hot plate, accompanied by rice paper) but in a bowl, with steamed rice noodles and an interesting fish-sauce-based dressing. I asked for some extra fish and rice paper, to relive a bit of Hanoi.

The owner of the restaurant was apparently watching us, because she strolled over and said, “you must have been to Vietnam, because you are very familiar with our food.” It was a nice observation, if not completely true, and as though she knew it, she kindly offered a few pointers to enhance my education.

My beverage was lime juice, which is my favourite potable in Singapore. It’s always a little too sweet, but when served with lots of ice, it becomes better and better as it cools. Beverages here in general are corrosively sweet. Some of them – bright greens and pinks – even look like liquid candy. And just try getting an unsweetened cup of coffee or tea outside a café or Chinese restaurant.

Asian desserts, on the other hand, are barely sweet at all. Chinese pastries are puffy and breadlike with just a hint of sweetness. Many Indian candies have the consistency and taste of pie crust. And Singaporeans moderate the sweetness of ice cream, for example, by serving it in a slice of bread. Actual white bread (with a little food colouring added). Now that’s an ice cream sandwich.

I had to report to CLEO’s offices today for an “image consultation” and briefing about the “bachelors finale”. I came straight from a meeting in the city, so I arrived in a shirt and tie. A lavender-coloured Hugo Boss shirt and a lavender-striped tie by Michael Kors. I looked damn good if I do say so myself.

About half the guys were there, in the full range of attire. Everything from low-rider jeans and baggy cotton t-shirts to slick club clothes. Boys mostly, struggling mightily to grow small soul patches or sideburns. Call me uncle bachelor.

I arrived just short of fashionably late – about 15 minutes or so – which was good timing, as I took the last remaining chair. Five or six guys straggled in after me and had to stand. We sat around in silence, basically trying to avoid making eye-contact with each other. Perhaps we were all embarassed to be there. Perhaps the context – of eligible bachelorhood, of 25 cute guys forced to gather in a room – made us all suddenly homophobic.

After a seemingly endless awkward silence, the editor-in-chief of CLEO began to brief us on what to expect next…

She was a very put-together asian woman in a perfectly-tailored black dress that was neither too work nor too after work. She wore dark-rimmed, nerd-chic power glasses and the perfect amount of makeup. Exactly what you’d expect from the editor-and-chief of a women’s fashion magazine.

She surveyed the group and told us we looked “shell-shocked”. She also told us to hit the gym…Immediately. Great.

The image consultation was done individually. Basically, five women looked me over and told me, “your hair works fine” (which is good, because I don’t have any). They asked me to “walk like you do when you’re just walking down the street” (which is impossible when five women are evaluating how you walk). Apparently I walk fine. I asked one of the women to show me what an unacceptable walk would look like, and she sort of jerked across the room knockkneed like a half-paralytic. They measured my waist and my chest, asked me a couple more questions and sent me on my way.

Not unlike a sort of surreal medical check-up really.

I want the souvenir, but I so don’t want to do this. (just three more weeks, just three more weeks).

I saw a dance performance tonight at the Esplanade by Shen Wei, a Chinese choreographer now based in New York. The first piece was called The Rite of Spring, after the Stravinsky piece.

The choreographer describes the piece as, essentially, an exploration of the music itself:

When I first heard Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in China in 1989, I was enthralled by the rich and evocative texture of the score. Over the next 12 years I continued to develop a creative interest in the piece, finally beginning in-depth research of the music in the winter of 2001. I was further inspired when I heard Fazil Say’s performance of the two-piano version of the score…

The Stravinsky score is constructed with both technical complexity and narrative passion. However, in keeping with my interest in abstraction, it is only the melodic and rhythmic qualities of the music, rather than the story it tells, which inform the choice of movement vocabulary…”

Shen Wei’s roots are in Chinese Opera, and he’s used that foundation to develop a unique physical vocabulary. I’m not sure how to describe it exactly, except perhaps to say it involves a separation of upper and lower body – each following and creating a variation on the other – unlike anything I’d seen before. To pull this off, his dancers had to be physically amazing, and they were.

The second piece was called Folding, and it was much more of a visual tableaux than a physical performance. The backdrop was a blown-up Chinese painting of a fish, and the stage was framed at the edges by billowing columns of white cloth.

Accompanied by droning Tibetan chants, the dancers emerged into the painting very slowly, two-at-a-time, one holding the other. Their torsos and faces were painted white, and they wore thick skirts of black or red cloth.

The most stunning moment came at the end. With the stage nearly dark, the dancers gathered in the center, turned and walked together toward the back. At the back of the stage, they began to rise very slowly – almost imperceptably at first – into the air. Until they all seemed to be floating.

I’m back in the little lion city state after a week in San Francisco. In the end, I was able to get one night of well-needed sleep, although I undid the healing effects a little the next night, via several bottles of wine and three friends in my hotel room.

On Saturday, right before I left, my friend Leilani asked me what I will miss about Singapore when I leave it for good (assuming I do). I struggled for a minute to come up with anything, which has nothing to do with Singapore and its charms, per se. It has everything to do with the city I left – San Francisco.

After a minute, I was able to think of just one thing: the swimming pool at my apartment complex.

Now, bear in mind I was about to leave a city I love and embark once again into the land of Mordor that is the project I’m working on here.* So, my answer was hardly fair to Singapore. This is a lovely place, and there are things I will surely miss.

I will miss the delicious after hours food in Geylang and along my own River Valley Road. I will miss the fact there is an “after-hours” at all. I will miss t-shirt weather. Most of all, I will miss being able to hop on a plane to Bali, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam or one of a half-dozen other amazing places on a Friday and be back by Monday.

^{*I’m suddenly feeling the need to qualify that statement, so I will say that this project is not like Mordor so much as it is like the ring quest itself. It has taken this team to its limits. We are a tired and broken bunch. We have promised a lot, and the client has challenged us to deliver even more. It’s something that happens on every project in this business, but I will be honest and say that we feel a painful lack of appreciation for the hard, hard work we’ve done.}

A funny spam from my boss. Probably nothing new to Singaporeans, but as Homer Simpson might say, “It’s funny cuz it’s true!”

The following signs suggest you’ve been in Singapore too long, especially if you come from a Western country…

You’ve lost your sense of irony, sarcasm, and cynicism.

You don’t know what’s lame and what isn’t anymore.

You think there’s nothing wrong with putting chili sauce on everything you eat.

You wait for instructions from people in authority before doing anything. Always.

You join queues without knowing or caring what the queue is for.

You know what “queue” means!!

You can type an SMS on your phone as quickly as you would if you had a regular keyboard.

Your idea of a good night out consists of having dinner at a hawker centre, drinking beer, and then going to another hawker centre and eating again.

You’ve lost your ability to criticize people in higher positions than you, even if they’re wrong.

You accept that expressways here are cleaner than toilets rather than the other way around.

You would buy a $20 product you don’t need if it’s on sale for $10 just to save the money.

You forget to say the last consonant in words like “faCT”, “aTE”,etc.

You think that corn and beans are dessert foods.

You have a high tolerance for nagging.

Most or all of these acronyms make sense to you: NUS; NTU; ERP; SDU; PAP; MRT; LKY; GCT; PRC; TIBS; SBS; SMS; JB; JBJ; AMK; AYE; PIE; ECP; ISD; ISA; 5 C’s; CPF; CHIJMES; SPG; CWO.

You use too many acronyms when you talk, or you create new ones.

You think that nothing makes a girl or guy more attractive than to dress exactly like hundreds of thousands of other girls and guys who all dress exactly like girls and guys in malls.

You think that $100,000 is a reasonable price for a Toyota Corolla and $1,000,000 is a reasonable price for a bungalow, but $5 for a plate of fried noodles is a barbarous outrage.

You believe that not being able to get decent roti prata outside Singapore is enough to keep the best and the brightest people from leaving.

You see nothing wrong with forming committees of select elite people to deliberate and study ways to stimulate creativity and spontaneity.

You justify every argument with the phrase “in order for us to be competitive in the 21st century”.

You think everything should be “topped up”.

You believe that a lack of land is enough justification for the goverment to do what it wants.

You wear winter clothes indoors and summer clothes outdoors.

Durian and belachan no longer stink to you.

You like to have fun, but not too much fun, since you need to correctly gauge the amount of fun necessary to achieve the optimal result. Any more fun that that would bring shame to your family and your country.

You forgot what a city organized around a grid looks like.

In a country where people use smart cards for public transit, you have no problem with construction workers riding in the open backs of pickup trucks.

You think paying $50 for a bottle of booze that costs $15 at home is a bargain.

You’re not confused by a street naming system that locates streets like Clementi Road, Clementi Street, Clementi Crescent, Clementi Lane, Clementi Drive, Clementi Way, and Clementi Avenues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 all within walking distance of each other.

You get irritated if you don’t see a sign telling you how long your wait’s going to be for a bus, a train, or the expressway to take you where you want to go.

You think that no vegetable should ever be eaten raw for any reason. Except for cucumbers.

No matter what you’re doing at the moment, you’d rather be shopping.

You forgot what chewing gum tastes like.

You say “handphone”, not “cellphone” And you think there’s no such thing as a handphone that’s too thin.

You’re not bothered by the fact that government cares whether you know how to use a toilet or urinal correctly. (People squatting on toilet bowls? What the…???–ed.)

You’re sure that the best way to change social behaviour is through consistent and comprehensive government-sponsored campaigns that permeate as many aspects of daily life as possible. And when they don’t work, you never speak of them again.

You think a bus is incomplete without a TV.

You know why this list needs the following disclaimer:
“This list is intended only as an amusing, light-hearted, and exaggerated look at life in Singapore and is not meant to be taken seriously. There is no intention on the part of the author of this list to make any untrue, misleading, or defamatory statements concerning any person in particular, nor to make any statement intended to cause offense. If any such offense has been caused, the author apologizes and retracts the offending statement. In any event, the author’s NOT WORTH SUING, so don’t trouble yourself.”

WARNING: I’ve hardly posted anything these last two weeks. I’ve been working long long days for a difficult client. So, there hasn’t been a whole lot of interestin’ readin’ here lately, and I’m about to talk about doors. The doors of Singapore.

In the US, Doors are usually clearly labelled “Push” or “Pull”. This seems straightforward enough, but often the handle design suggests a particular (and contradictory method). This is where it gets problematic. A door clearly labelled “Push”, for example, might have a handle that silently shouts “Pull”, and vise versa. In Europe, this is especially common for some reason.

One thing Singapore has figured out is that it shouldn’t matter. Most swinging doors here open either way. I love this. It’s the little things.

For some reason it makes me think of a recent Straits times piece about a traffic study commissioned in the Netherlands. Basically it demonstrated that cities whose laws favor neither vehicles nor pedestrians (i.e. every man for himself) have lower incidents of pedestrians hit by cars. I’ve been saying for years that it’s precisely because of the pedestrians-first laws of San Francisco that so many pedestrians get hit by cars.

OK. That seems really off-topic, now that I’ve written it.

Anyway, back to doors. Glass is big here. Singapore, a city of new hotels and shopping malls, is a city of glass and steel. The problem this poses is that, often, as you approach what you believe to be the entry point of a building, no part of the all-glass facade looks any more like a door than any other part.

So you slow down and sort of weave back and forth until something automatically slides open. Sometimes, however, the glass is so clean that even when you hear it slide open, you still can’t be completely confident you won’t face-plant into plate glass.

So there’s a bit of news I’ve been too embarassed to share until now, but I might as well get it out…

I’ve been named one of CLEO Magazine’s 50 Most Eligible Bachelors of Singapore for 2005.

[pause for laughter]

When the whole thing first came up, I had enough liquid courage in me to say ‘yes’ to the idea. Not being a reader of magazines for young ladies, I had never heard of CLEO, and I half-suspected the ‘eligible bachelors’ thing was a joke or ploy of some kind.

Even when I got a follow-up call from someone on the editorial staff, I never imagined I’d make the cut, so to speak. A few weeks ago, I was amazed to hear I was ‘shortlisted’, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. I still didn’t imagine I’d actually wind up in the final fifty – especially when, at my photo shoot, the CLEO women made fun of me for being “half a tourist”.

The photo shoot, by the way, was just how you would imagine it to be – a parody of itself. The photographer actually said things like “Give me your mysterious smile. Okay, now give me your sexy smile. Come on, pretend I’m a beautiful girl…”

The interview was the same way, with questions like “what kind of girl gets your mojo going?” and “What do you like to do when you think no one is watching?”

The (April) issue hits newsstands mid-March, and so will begin my new career.